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Correction: If they smoke, they will POSSIBLY die younger. It's not cut and dried and nobody can prove any individual ever died "young," simply because nobody knows when that person would have died otherwise. It's just a matter of odds. Conversely, the same can be said of those who live "healthy" lives. It cannot be definitively proved that they lengthened their lives for the same reason.
In any case, if holding down healthcare costs is the objective, it would seem to be far more efficacious to encourage people to smoke, wouldn't you say?
The insurance company actuaries would certainly disagree with you. ON AVERAGE smokers die younger.
So, you're saying they COULD have gone up even more had people not stopped smoking?
Prove it. Facts and figures, please. (Hint: You can't. All you can do is quote possibilities, the same as you can do if everyone were forced to be "healthy.")
The point is that no matter how "healthy" the government forces people to be, folks are still going to get old and suffer age-related illnesses and medical treatments. That's going to cost money...a lot of it. In fact, it's likely to drive UP healthcare costs because they'll live longer and spend more of their declining years in long term care.
By your idea, it would be cost effective to just kill everyone at birth or the first time they did something which might have an adverse health effect later on. Talk about saving money!
The facts and figures are in the link. Did you read it?
"Health care costs for smokers at a given age are as much as 40 percent higher than those for nonsmokers, but in a population in which no one smoked the costs would be 7 percent higher among men and 4 percent higher among women than the costs in the current mixed population of smokers and nonsmokers. If all smokers quit, health care costs would be lower at first, but after 15 years they would become higher than at present. In the long term, complete smoking cessation would produce a net increase in health care costs, but it could still be seen as economically favorable under reasonable assumptions of discount rate and evaluation period."
Yes, an aging population is going to incur higher health care costs. You miss the point of trying to get people to quit smoking (or to adopt any life style change which will benefit their health). It is not to save money. It is to make them healthier.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stillkit
Yes, that's right. This is not an issue the state needs to be involved in. Either parents have rights and children have rights, or they don't. Which would you prefer?
If the child were in imminent danger of physical harm, yes of course, but to me, this doesn't rise to that level. Generations of parents have successfully raised overweight kids with any "help" from the government and I see no reason to presume the current one can't too.
At what point did we buy into the lie that government knows best? Why did we?
This child is not "overweight". He is morbidly obese. You do not seem to understand the difference. He is not in "imminent danger of physical harm". He is already experiencing physical harm. He requires treatment for obstructive sleep apnea. The treatment does not cure the problem. Weight loss is the foundation of curing it. His mother has beeen unable to accomplish that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stillkit
Correction: If they smoke, they will POSSIBLY die younger. It's not cut and dried and nobody can prove any individual ever died "young," simply because nobody knows when that person would have died otherwise. It's just a matter of odds. Conversely, the same can be said of those who live "healthy" lives. It cannot be definitively proved that they lengthened their lives for the same reason.
In any case, if holding down healthcare costs is the objective, it would seem to be far more efficacious to encourage people to smoke, wouldn't you say?
Smokers as a group die younger. We are not talking about an individual.
" ... during 2000--2004, cigarette smoking and exposure to tobacco smoke resulted in at least 443,000 premature deaths."
And holding down health care costs is not the objective. Improving health is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stillkit
But, the extremes are precisely where the debate should be held. Those "extremes" are contracting every day, with every intervention, and will soon become the norm unless we establish a limit, a point where we say, "This far and no more."
For instance, you consider this particular case as warranting intervention, but you're missing a key ingredient: WHO notified CPS and why? At what point did this child come to their attention and who did it?
I think I recall reading that a doctor or hospital turned the child in because of his weight (is that right?). If so, when and how did that become a reportable issue and why?
In the name of child safety, we've empowered teachers, health care professionals and others to report suspected abuse or neglect cases. In fact, we COMPEL them to do it. Yet, we give them no clear-cut guidelines about what is, or is not, evidence of neglect or abuse, so everyone just sort of takes that ball and runs with it to the point that being overweight can now be defined as "medical neglect."
Can you not see where this can lead if not stopped? What else can be defined thusly, enabling CPS to involve itself with a family? High blood pressure? Too much salt in someone's diet? "Risky" behaviors such as unsupervised play?
One should never, ever forget the process of incrementalism. Once started, balls like this continue to roll and grow until the brakes are applied. If nobody cares enough to say, "That's enough," it will soon consume us all and our families.
But there are guidelines. ER doctors and pediatricians are trained to recognize signs of abuse. They have a responsiblity to the child to report anything that threatens that child's health. This assumes that the threat is something modifiable. If a child had any treatable condition and the parents wre unwilling or unable to do what was needed to provide that treatment, then someone has to advocate for the child. What is in the best interest of the child?
You are downplaying the severity of the weight problem. This is not just your average fat kid. It is a boy so fat that he cannot breathe properly. He is not just "overweight." He was brought to the attention of social services when he was taken to the hospital with breathing problems.
The brakes are the court system. A family court judge has to be convinced that the best interest of the child is to be removed from the home. I venture to guess that none of them take that responsibility lightly.
I have read many times that preventative medicine is cheaper that the more expensive cures. Staying at a healthy weight and not smoking and not drinking in excess are preventative medicine in my mind.
I've read that many times too, but that doesn't necessarily make it so. I've yet to see any quantitative figures comparing shorter, less healthy lives, with the cost of longer lives. Have you?
I do know this: That roughly 75% of the expenses of Medicaid are being spent on elderly people, mostly in the form of long-term care.
AGAIN, this is not the case of "just an overweight" kid. This is an extreme case of an excessively obese kid, who's parents-despite being given the resources-refused to or couldn't properly address this situation. This is not the case of the 20# husky boy who hits a growth spurt and fits inside or is close to the BMI scale again.
You're missing the point, so let me phrase it this way:
If 200 lbs. is excessive enough for government intervention, is 190 lbs? How about 180? Or, 150? At what point does it become "excessive" enough to warrant intervention? How about ANY evidence of overweight?
And, given that medical "science" routinely changes the definitions of what's good or bad for us (remember how "bad" salt was a few months ago, but now it's not?), whats to prevent CPS from brining their enforcement procedures into line every time "science" changes it's mind and catching YOUR kids? Would you be willing to surrender your kids just because science and the CPS said they're in need of help?
"Health care costs for smokers at a given age are as much as 40 percent higher than those for nonsmokers, but in a population in which no one smoked the costs would be 7 percent higher among men and 4 percent higher among women than the costs in the current mixed population of smokers and nonsmokers. If all smokers quit, health care costs would be lower at first, but after 15 years they would become higher than at present. In the long term, complete smoking cessation would produce a net increase in health care costs, but it could still be seen as economically favorable under reasonable assumptions of discount rate and evaluation period."
Yes, an aging population is going to incur higher health care costs. You miss the point of trying to get people to quit smoking (or to adopt any life style change which will benefit their health). It is not to save money. It is to make them healthier.
This child is not "overweight". He is morbidly obese. You do not seem to understand the difference. He is not in "imminent danger of physical harm". He is already experiencing physical harm. He requires treatment for obstructive sleep apnea. The treatment does not cure the problem. Weight loss is the foundation of curing it. His mother has beeen unable to accomplish that.
Smokers as a group die younger. We are not talking about an individual.
" ... during 2000--2004, cigarette smoking and exposure to tobacco smoke resulted in at least 443,000 premature deaths."
And holding down health care costs is not the objective. Improving health is.
So, if reducing costs isn't the issue, what does society gain from all this? Higher costs are in the public interest?
Moreover, what gives you or government, or anyone else, the right to "help" those who haven't asked for it?
Quote:
But there are guidelines. ER doctors and pediatricians are trained to recognize signs of abuse. They have a responsiblity to the child to report anything that threatens that child's health.
No, they have an obligation to report things which are a danger to a child and defining poor health as a reportable danger is a stretch from the law's intent. But, stretching the law to encompass more is precisely the debate.
Quote:
This assumes that the threat is something modifiable. If a child had any treatable condition and the parents wre unwilling or unable to do what was needed to provide that treatment, then someone has to advocate for the child. What is in the best interest of the child?
You are downplaying the severity of the weight problem. This is not just your average fat kid. It is a boy so fat that he cannot breathe properly. He is not just "overweight." He was brought to the attention of social services when he was taken to the hospital with breathing problems.
The brakes are the court system. A family court judge has to be convinced that the best interest of the child is to be removed from the home. I venture to guess that none of them take that responsibility lightly.
The judges and prosecutors in Nazi courts took their responsibilities seriously too, but the system itself which was flawed.
My Cousin had the same problem. Thier Daughter was over 200 pounds in grade school and they took her away from them...(See, this isnt the 'first case', only the first case to be reported to the News, and this happened back in the 90s).
They took her, put her in foster care, and tried to teach her how to 'eat properly'... Well, after a year, they gave her back to the parents, (she had lost some weight), but, it wasnt long, she put it back on again!
The Parent were 'enablers', and gave her all the food she wanted to eat, and then some! So, she went back to her old weight, and gained more as the years went by.
She is still obese and has children now, so, if the pattern holds true, she will enable her kids to eat and be obeese also. Sad, but, true.
I wish you well...
Jesse
No, it has happened before and I have to wonder what the success rate is and what the emotional repercussions are for the years to come. You say she lost some weight? How much? A little bit or a lot? It mentioned another family in the article who had also lost a child to foster due to the child's weight problems and she stayed out a year and only lost a little weight--that tells me that there is more here than just eating too much and crap food. And guess what? Turned out the child had medical problems.
This is only slightly related, but I think it's important, because in this case the caseworkers were also very sincere in their belief that they were doing the right thing. Happened about 19 years ago when my dd was an infant. A woman was trying to get hold of the La Leche League to ask some questions about breastfeeding. There was some confusion about who she was trying to call (this was pre-internet days) so she explained her problem to the young man on the line and he was appalled--apparently she was still nursing a 2 yo and he decided that it was child abuse and hotlined her. Not one of the professionals involved in the case had any idea that it is even possible to still nurse a 2 yo so they took her child and it took months to get her baby back again. They said it was sexual abuse! The LLL stepped in and said that all of the woman's concerns were normal, but it was too late once the wheels had been set in motion--once you start the paperwork. . . I was sick b/c I was also breastfeeding my dd and feeling a lot of social pressure not to, but I nursed both of them till the age of 2. My in-laws hated it so much I had to go to the back bedroom but ours were the only kids in the family that didn't get tubes in the ears.
I don't know much about what is actually done to help these families, but if cooking lessons aren't part of the program then the agency has failed. If you pull some people in and lecture them about feeding green leafy veggies and eating chicken, it's all going to be abstract to them. You have to show them how to fix green leafies and how to cut up and cook a chicken or they're just going to keep buying lunchables and all that other non-food stuff in the middle of the grocery store because at least they know how to tear open a package. The FACS classes in school don't help much--sat in on a class the other day with an extremely obese, young teacher who was showing them how to mix up chocolate muffins. My dd's FACS teacher showed them how to make spaghetti--from jar sauce.
I've read that many times too, but that doesn't necessarily make it so. I've yet to see any quantitative figures comparing shorter, less healthy lives, with the cost of longer lives. Have you?
I do know this: That roughly 75% of the expenses of Medicaid are being spent on elderly people, mostly in the form of long-term care.
You're missing the point, so let me phrase it this way:
If 200 lbs. is excessive enough for government intervention, is 190 lbs? How about 180? Or, 150? At what point does it become "excessive" enough to warrant intervention? How about ANY evidence of overweight?
And, given that medical "science" routinely changes the definitions of what's good or bad for us (remember how "bad" salt was a few months ago, but now it's not?), whats to prevent CPS from brining their enforcement procedures into line every time "science" changes it's mind and catching YOUR kids? Would you be willing to surrender your kids just because science and the CPS said they're in need of help?
It becomes "excessive" when there is evidence that the chld is suffering harm. And you are still harping on 'overweight". The issue here is "morbid obesity". They are not the same thing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stillkit
Average is just another way of saying odds.
Will you surrender your liberties as a parent for better odds?
Our liberties come with responsibilities.
If you commit a crime, your physical liberty can be curtailed very quickly.
Your right to free speech does not allow you to commit slander or libel.
Your rights as a parent do not include the option to abuse your child.
To use your argument, at what weight should an underfed child be removed from a home? Is it at the point that failure to thrive is picked up by a physician, or do we set an arbitrary limit: the child has to be under a set weight? What if the child fails to thrive but never falls under that limit and dies? Does the doctor not report the situation because the arbitrary weight limit was not met?
Quote:
Originally Posted by stillkit
So, if reducing costs isn't the issue, what does society gain from all this? Higher costs are in the public interest?
Moreover, what gives you or government, or anyone else, the right to "help" those who haven't asked for it?
No, they have an obligation to report things which are a danger to a child and defining poor health as a reportable danger is a stretch from the law's intent. But, stretching the law to encompass more is precisely the debate.
The judges and prosecutors in Nazi courts took their responsibilities seriously too, but the system itself which was flawed.
Society gains a healthier, more productive citizenry.
Society has an obligation to help those who by virtue of age or infirmity are unable to ask for themselves. Otherwise, no sexually abused child would ever be removed from the custody of his abuser. I believe the authority is defined in the Preamble to the United States Constitution: "to promote the general welfare." The implementation lies in state laws and regulations.
Whose parents, guardian, or custodian neglects the child or refuses to provide proper or necessary subsistence, education, medical or surgical care or treatment, or other care necessary for the child's health, morals, or well-being."
The statute appears clear to me. Failure to provide "proper or necessary subsistence or medical care or treatment" is negect. It is not necessary for the neglect to be intentional.
Note that the statute does not define "proper or necessary". That is left for the court which administers the law to decide.
The physician reports his concerns about the child, CPS investigates, and, if it feels it is warranted, moves the child to safety, and the court determines what is done next.
No, it has happened before and I have to wonder what the success rate is and what the emotional repercussions are for the years to come. You say she lost some weight? How much? A little bit or a lot? It mentioned another family in the article who had also lost a child to foster due to the child's weight problems and she stayed out a year and only lost a little weight--that tells me that there is more here than just eating too much and crap food. And guess what? Turned out the child had medical problems.
This is only slightly related, but I think it's important, because in this case the caseworkers were also very sincere in their belief that they were doing the right thing. Happened about 19 years ago when my dd was an infant. A woman was trying to get hold of the La Leche League to ask some questions about breastfeeding. There was some confusion about who she was trying to call (this was pre-internet days) so she explained her problem to the young man on the line and he was appalled--apparently she was still nursing a 2 yo and he decided that it was child abuse and hotlined her. Not one of the professionals involved in the case had any idea that it is even possible to still nurse a 2 yo so they took her child and it took months to get her baby back again. They said it was sexual abuse! The LLL stepped in and said that all of the woman's concerns were normal, but it was too late once the wheels had been set in motion--once you start the paperwork. . . I was sick b/c I was also breastfeeding my dd and feeling a lot of social pressure not to, but I nursed both of them till the age of 2. My in-laws hated it so much I had to go to the back bedroom but ours were the only kids in the family that didn't get tubes in the ears.
I don't know much about what is actually done to help these families, but if cooking lessons aren't part of the program then the agency has failed. If you pull some people in and lecture them about feeding green leafy veggies and eating chicken, it's all going to be abstract to them. You have to show them how to fix green leafies and how to cut up and cook a chicken or they're just going to keep buying lunchables and all that other non-food stuff in the middle of the grocery store because at least they know how to tear open a package. The FACS classes in school don't help much--sat in on a class the other day with an extremely obese, young teacher who was showing them how to mix up chocolate muffins. My dd's FACS teacher showed them how to make spaghetti--from jar sauce.
The majority of people who are morbidly obese do not have a "medical" cause of their obesity, in the sense that treating some medical condition wil restore them to a normal weight. It is possible to become morbidly obese just by eating too much, and that is what usually happens.
It could probably be said that anyone who becomes morbidly obese has an eating disorder and psychological issues to deal with.
From witnessing what your dd's FACS teacher chose to cook, do you think her obesity is related to a medical condition or to poor food choices? Have you considered discussing the curiculum for this class with the administration?
And the deficiencies of CPS in dealing with other children and situations is irrelevant. It would be ideal if CPS never made any mistakes. But that does not mean that it should stop doing its job because it is not infallible. Give CPS the funds to hire good people and the number of mistakes would go way down.
As far as cooking classes are concerned, I would be surprised if the Rainbow Hospital Program does not address that. But at some point, the mother has to come to her senses and realize that, though it is hard, she has to change what she is doing. Recipes are just a compuer link away. She has to step up and take responsibility for her child's health.
I've read that many times too, but that doesn't necessarily make it so. I've yet to see any quantitative figures comparing shorter, less healthy lives, with the cost of longer lives. Have you?
I do know this: That roughly 75% of the expenses of Medicaid are being spent on elderly people, mostly in the form of long-term care.
Thats because its mainly older people who use me Medicaid.
Preventative measures will not only cost less, it will keep people from developing some diseases and keep them on track to live a healthy life in their elder years.
Who wants to live a shorter unhealthy life? Seems like a moot point to me.
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